Part 36 (1/2)

Yet the fact was indisputable; the secret of the dwarfish figures was revealed, though behind that secret lay the darker andConan stood drowned in dizzy cogitation, he never knew A voice shook hiaze, a feminine voice that shriekedborne nearer Conan recognized that voice, and his paralysis vanished instantly

A quick bound carried hi aside the clustering i and a scra over it It was an outer wall; he was looking into the green rassy level a giant black was striding, carrying a squirht carry a rebellious child It was Sancha, her black hair falling in disheveled rippling waves, her olive skin contrasting abruptly with the glossy ebony of her captor He gave no heed to her wrigglings and cries as he made for the outer archway

As he vanished within, Conan sprang recklessly down the wall and glided into the arch that opened into the further court Crouching there, he saw the giant enter the court of the pool, carrying his writhing captive Noas able to make out the creature's details

The superb sye Under the ebon skin long, rounded muscles rippled, and Conan did not doubt that the monster could rend an ordinary ers provided further weapons, for they were grown like the talons of a wild beast The face was a carven ebony littered But the face was inhuman; each line, each feature was sta thewas not a hurowth of Life from the pits of blasphemous creation - a perversion of evolutionary developiant cast Sancha down on the sward, where she grovelled, crying with pain and terror He cast a glance about as if uncertain, and his tawny eyes narrowed as they rested on the irasped his captive by her neck and crotch, and strode purposefully toward the green pool And Conan glided from his archway, and raced like a wind of death across the sward

The giant wheeled, and his eyes flared as he saw the bronzed avenger rushi+ng toward hirip relaxed and Sancha wriggled frorass The taloned hands spread and clutched, but Conan ducked beneath their swoop and drove his sword through the giant's groin The black went down like a felled tree, gushi+ng blood, and the next instant Conan was seized in a frantic grasp as Sancha sprang up and threw her arms around him in a frenzy of terror and hysterical relief

He cursed as he disengaged hilazed, the long ebony limbs had ceased to twitch

'Oh, Conan,' Sancha was sobbing, clinging tenaciously to him, 'ill become of us? What are these monsters? Oh, surely this is hell and that was the devil-'

'Then hell needs a new devil' The Barachan grinned fiercely 'But how did he get hold of you? Have they taken the shi+p?'

'I don't know' She tried to wipe away her tears, rumbled for her skirt, and then remembered that she wore none 'I came ashore I saw you follow Zaporavo, and I followed you both I found Zaporavo - was - was it you who-'

'Who else?' he grunted 'What then?'

'I saw a ht it was you I called - then I saw that - that black thing squatting like an ape ahtmare; I couldn't run All I could do was squeal Then it dropped from the tree and seized me - oh, oh, oh!' She hid her face in her hands, and was shaken anew at the et out of here,' he growled, catching her wrist 'Coet to the crew-'

'Most of them were asleep on the beach as I entered the woods,' she said

'Asleep?' he exclaimed profanely 'What in the seven devils of hell's fire and dae of fright

'I heard it!' he snapped 'A ain and, glaring over the wall, sith a concentrated fury that , but they came not alone or empty-handed Each bore a limp human form; so slackly in their captors' ar, Conan would have believed them dead They had been disarmed but not stripped; one of the blacks bore their sheathed swords, a great ar steel Froue cry, like a drunkard calling out in sottish sleep

Like a trapped wolf Conan glared about hih the eastern arch the blacks had left the court, and through it they would presumably return He had entered by the southern arch In the western arch he had hidden, and had not had tinorance of the plan of the castle, he was forced todown the wall, he replaced the ied the corpse of his victim to the pool and cast it in It sank instantly and, as he looked, he distinctly saw an appalling contraction - a shrinking, a hardening He hastily turned away, shuddering Then he seized his companion's arm and led her hastily toward the southern archhile she begged to be told as happening

'They've bagged the crew,' he answered hastily 'I haven't any plan, but we'll hide somewhere and watch If they don't look in the pool, they may not suspect our presence'

'But they'll see the blood on the grass!'

'Maybe they'll think one of their own devils spilled it,' he answered 'Anye'll have to take the chance'

They were in the court from which he had watched the torture of the boy, and he led her hastily up the stair thatposition behind the balustrade of the balcony; it was poor concealment, but the best they could do

Scarcely had they settled themselves, when the blacks filed into the court There was a resounding clash at the foot of the stairs, and Conan stiffened, grasping his sword But the blacks passed through an archway on the southwestern side, and they heard a series of thuds and groans The giants were casting their victile rose to Sancha's lips, and Conan quickly clapped his hand over herthe sound before it could betray the of ned Conan peered over the wall The court was eathered about the pool in the adjoining court, squatting on their haunches They seereat smears of blood on the sward and the jade ri unusual Nor were they looking into the pool They were engrossed in some inexplicable conclave of their own; the tall black was playing again on his golden pipes, and his co Sancha's hand, Conan glided down the stair, stooping so that his head would not be visible above the wall The cringing girl followed perforce, staring fearfully at the arch that let into the court of the pool, but through which, at that angle, neither the pool nor its gri were visible At the foot of the stair lay the swords of the Zingarans The clash they had heard had been the casting down of the captured weapons

Conan drew Sancha toward the southwestern arch, and they silently crossed the sward and entered the court beyond There the Freebooters lay in careless heaps,Here and there one stirred or groaned restlessly Conan bent down to the forith her hands on her thighs

'What is that sweet cloying smell?' she asked nervously 'It's on all their breaths'

'It's that da,' he answered softly 'I remember the smell of it It must have been like the black lotus, thatto awake -but they're unarmed, and I have an idea that those black devils won't wait long before they begin their ic on them What chance will the lads have, unarmed and stupid with slu with the intentness of his thoughts; then seized Sancha's olive shoulder in a grip that made her wince

'Listen! I'll draw those black swine into another part of the castle and keep them busy for a while Meanwhile you shake these fools awake, and bring their swords to the chance Can you do it?'

'I - I - don't know!' she sta what she was saying

With a curse, Conan caught her thick tresses near her head and shook her until the walls danced to her dizzy sight

'You must do it!' he hissed at her 'It's our only chance!'

'I'll do runt of co slap on the back that nearly knocked her down, he glided away

A fewat the arch that opened into the court of the pool, glaring upon his ene to show evidences of an evil i buccaneers he heard their groans growing louder, beginning to be led with incoherent curses He tensed hiseasily between his teeth

The jeweled giant rose, taking his pipes fro the startled blacks with a tigerish bound And as a tiger leaps and strikes a his prey, Conan leaped and struck: thrice his blade nickered before any could lift a hand in defense; then he bounded fro them and raced across the sward Behind hiures, their skulls split

But though the unexpected fury of his surprize had caught the giants off guard, the survivors recovered quickly enough They were at his heels as he ran through the western arch, their long legs sweeping the speed However, he felt confident of his ability to outfoot the theive Sancha tiarans

And as he raced into the court beyond the western arch, he swore This court differed froonal, and the arch by which he had entered was the only entrance or exit

Wheeling, he saw that the entire band had followed hiroup clustered in the arch, and the rest spread out in a wide line as they approached He faced the slowly toward the northern wall The line bent into a se out to hem him in He continued tothe spaces widening between the pursuers They feared lest he should try to dart around a horn of the crescent, and lengthened their line to prevent it

He watched with the calm alertness of a wolf, and when he struck it ith the devastatingsuddenness of a thunderbolt -full at the center of the crescent The giant who barred his ent down cloven to the middle of the breast-bone, and the pirate was outside their closing ring before the blacks to right and left could coate prepared to receive his onslaught, but Conan did not charge the his hunters without apparent emotion, and certainly without fear

This time they did not spread out in a thin line They had learned that it was fatal to divide their forces against such an incarnation of clawing, rending fury They bunched up in a compacttheir formation

Conan knew that if he fell foul of that mass of taloned muscle and bone, there could be but one cul thereater body-weight to advantage, even his prilanced around the wall and saw a ledge-like projection above a corner on the western side What it was he did not know, but it would serve his purpose He began backing toward that corner, and the giants advancedhim into the corner themselves, and Conan found time to reflect that they probably looked on him as a member of a lower order,is onist

Noas only a few yards fro in rapidly, evidently thinking to pin hiroup at the gate had deserted their post and were hastening to join their fellows The giants half-crouched, eyes blazing like golden hell-fire, teeth glistening whitely, taloned hands lifted as if to fend off attack They expected an abrupt and violent move on the part of their prey, but when it came, it took them by surprize